Burn Out the Pain
by Lucky Gun
Summary: Staff Sergeant Rahna is called to assist with a medical emergency on Intai'sei. What she finds undoes fifteen years of prejudice. Paragon FemShep/Alenko, Shenko, very late ME1, hurt/comfort, some language


Title: Burn Out the Pain

Author: Lucky Gun

Description: Staff Sergeant Rahna is called to assist with a medical emergency on Intai'sei. What she finds undoes fifteen years of prejudice. Paragon FemShep/Alenko, Shenko, very late ME1, hurt/comfort, some language

A/N: I took some liberties with Rahna's history, mostly because there is next to nothing out there on her. Pulled the rest from the Pinnacle Station DLC for ME1. Also took some extra liberties there. Pulls from other elements in my ME stories. Enjoy!

* * *

It had started as a pleasant day, one she was not going to let anyone ruin for her. A longer shower than normal – thanks to the water rations she'd won from two green corporals at poker – put her in a forgiving mood. Her uniform fit her better than usual, and she thanked her extra yoga sessions for it. Her hair had _finally_ grown out of that terrible cut she'd drunkenly agreed to. There were smiles and laughter in the mess from the Alliance crewmembers, the ship having become something like a home. And she thought, just maybe, she could make this work. That she could give, and fight, to make this work. Then the beacon hit their antenna, and everything had gone to hell.

" _This is Commander Shepard, hailing from the Calvados Homestead on Intai'sei. We're experiencing a medical emergency. Our coordinates are attached. I say again, this is Spectre Shepard, Commander of the_ SSV Normandy _, hailing from the Calvados Homestead on Intai'sei. We're experiencing a medical emergency and require immediate assistance from biotic-trained trauma units. Our coordinates are as follows."_

It was with a nod, and a sigh, and a toss of her long black hair that she grabbed her gear and headed towards the shuttle bay. She'd heard of the famous Commander Shepard; honestly, who hadn't? Frankly, she wasn't impressed. Battling back a little Geth insurgence and still failing to track down one rogue Turian wasn't quite the most remarkable resume she'd heard. Sure, there was other stuff in the Spectre's jacket, things wrapped with red tape and black censor, but if it was that good, the Alliance wouldn't go that far to hide it, right?

With a firm huff, she pulled on her helmet and gripped her gun while she watched the medics load onto the atmo shift. The door closed, her view of the interior of the _Dover_ fell away, and she frowned at the targeting reticule glowing in her eyes.

On second thought, Staff Sergeant Sadik Rahna was not having a good day.

* * *

They weren't exactly at the homestead, as reported. The coordinates put them a dozen clicks south, deep in a rugged red mountain range taller than the Andes and steeper than hell. Before the shuttle even landed, Staff Sergeant Rahna had worked herself into a state of simple aggravation. It was obvious to a lot of people that Shepard was a blowhard who kowtowed to those in power. Alien-appeasers had grown vocal since the First Contact War, and Shepard was the worst of them. Always spouting that kumbaya shit about hands and talons and tentacles all joining together to sing praises to the Enkindlers or whatever god was being worshiped that minute, and always saying shit like that in public.

 _In public!_

For her part, Rahna didn't understand why the brass let her get away with it. Shepard was a soldier, not a deity, and for them to put her so high up on a pedestal while the rest of them grunts had to grind away in the trenches pissed her off. But, she was a good Marine, if not a little stubborn at times, and she knew her job. So when the shuttle touched down and the doors opened, she jumped out and turned towards the flashes of metal ten yards away.

Then she saw teeth – big, lots of them, coated with red – and her gun came up automatically.

"Alliance Marines, drop your weapons and put your hands in the air!"

Her voice was loud, firm, and not at all warm. She could already pick out a bunch of things that were distinctly inhuman. A snarling growl that covered his face – Krogan, angry and violently unpredictable. Mandibles that clicked in the sunlight – Turian, dangerous and shifty. Blue scales that flowed back off the brow – Asarian, intelligent and deadly. The three of them were bearing down on her, weapons drawn, shouts and orders going back and forth like the gunfire they were so close to unleashing.

"Put your gun down; we have wounded!"

"You want me to put my hands in the air? After they've ripped your arms off, maybe!"

"This is what the Alliance calls medical assistance? Pathetic!"

Then there was a different voice, steadfast, steel-like, deadlier than any plasma or laser, and it cut them all to the quick.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?!"

A woman surged forward, and she was slight, maybe an inch or two taller than Rahna, but the aliens fell back from her approach like she was her own planet. Her personal gravity moved them, pulled them, pushed them, and Rahna found herself staring with some sort of distant, filtered awe. She recognized the woman from some news vids she'd seen, and saw the short blond hair, the flashing green eyes, the thin scar that ran from one eyebrow across the ridge of her nose to fade to nothingness near her left ear. Her black and red armor was dingy with dust, and there was a bruise forming on her cheek.

Rahna fell into protocol immediately, the N7 on the woman's chest screaming like the obscenities in her head, and she snapped a salute that hurt her wrist.

"Commander Shepard, ma'am! Assistance from the _SSV Dover_ as requested, ma'am!"

Her words were clipped and perfect. Her salute, her posture, they were excellent – she'd practiced them in front of a mirror for three weeks straight once. Her armor was polished, her visor was clear, and she was standing at attention in front of _Commander Fucking Shepard!_ It wasn't hero worship, she abruptly decided as the Spectre stalked forward. It was protocol. It was proper.

"I called for a medic unit, not a fucking strike team! You land within thermal distance of my shore party and pull a weapon on them and demand they disarm?" she shouted over the roar of the shuttle as she stormed up to Rahna and grabbed her by her shoulder pauldron.

Rahna was...confused, sure. Angry, absolutely. But afraid...that she wouldn't admit to anyone. Not even herself.

"You threatened my crew! You threatened my fucking family!" she growled lowly, voice suddenly so much colder than the freezing weather around them.

The sergeant, dammit – she _dithered_.

"Um...ma'am, we-"

Whatever words were coming out of her mouth, she had to bite them back, because there was a sudden tickle at the back of her neck. It was faint, barely there, but familiar. Shepard turned in an instant, almost before Rahna even realized she'd felt something. The Asarian turned too, worry clear on her face, and the group before her fell aside. They moved again to Shepard's push/pull, flowing around her like water, and if there'd been music, it would have been a dance.

The people parted, and like a spire piercing the sky, there was a man there, a soldier, a rock of some solitude and fortress, at once seen and unseen. _Superman or a wreck_ , the whisper echoed in her head, a half-remembered memory from a life she barely remembered she'd survived. And Rahna stared – stared, gawked, forgot everything she was supposed to be doing – as the man looked up, grinned some sort of hollow smile, and a wave of blue wiped away _everything_.

Her own biotics, nearly latent with disuse and fear, couldn't respond fast enough. Hell, even the Asarian screamed. But there was another wave, this one calmer, gentler, and it stopped the ocean like a salt and fresh water meeting. Shepard rose, just as firm, just as solid as he, her arms outstretched as she moved forward. She was so fluid Rahna would swear she just _swam_ through the bright biotic sea.

Then protocol, life, everything she knew, everything she'd been trained, fell away in two seconds.

One second, she saw the whiskey eyes, darker and sparking blue, and her arm twinged as she heard Shepard whisper his name.

Another second, the Spectre crashed into him like a lover, arms enveloping, waves breaking, a careful hand palming over his eyes while the other plunged a hidden syringe into the center of his implant.

The typhoon eased in a heartbeat, his teal fire dying while her cobalt flames sparked anew. The sergeant could taste it, distantly, a hint of pepper and coffee, and she felt nauseous. Still, she couldn't look away as they fell to the ground, the team – family? family of aliens? – moving as one. It was art, and it was well practiced. Not necessarily on him, though. Rahna saw that immediately. But it was a normal thing, this coalition, this tightening of walls around the injured. The Turian moved first, a gentle hand on Shepard's shoulder; gentle, a fucking Turian! Then the Asarian moved, fingers searching for a wrist on both of them. It wasn't a pulse she looked for, something deeper, maybe, some sort of connection mere humans would never understand. The Krogan? Ha, he did what they were known for. He shifted to stand between them, and it was entirely _them versus us_ , his massive rifle held ready and loose in his hands. He gave her an uplifted, toothy snarl that felt too much like a threat, but she couldn't bring up her gun if Admiral Hackett had ordered it.

Because she felt his biotics, knew his name, knew his face, the touch of his lips on her cheek, the brush of his energy against hers, and knew, _knew…_ a long time ago, when she was sixteen, she had made a decision, and God help her, it had been the wrong one.

* * *

It took an hour to package everyone up and get them back to what Shepard kept calling 'the homestead'. In reality, it was a collection of pre-fabbed buildings on the same plateau, a generator and fuel depot tucked into a cave a quarter click away. There were three Mako units there, parked in the bright sun, and Rahna realized, somewhat distantly, that she was impressed that the crew had hiked out that far.

But still, the Spectre called it some sort of home, and it had an infirmary, so the medics from the _Dover_ weren't going to quibble. They bundled him into an isolation field and started using words she didn't understand, words that scared her.

 _Infection. Debilitating. Neural breakdown._

She knew her place, though, and kept her tongue firmly inside of it. Reluctantly, the crew of the _Normandy_ allowed her to stay. So she took her post at the entry of the main rooms, and did what she'd learned how to do best: she watched. And the more she watched, the more confused she grew.

Rahna didn't understand why Shepard broke protocol and didn't report the situation immediately to Hackett. Instead, she leaned over the holographic console – disheveled, battle suit removed and under armor barely hiding anything from anyone's imagination – and she gave a report to another man, a captain, and her voice broke in ways a person's voice should never break.

"I don't know, David. He's...they say he's going to be okay. They caught it in time. But he didn't tell me he was hurting, and I kept pushing him! I pushed them all so hard these last two weeks. Jesus, David...why the fuck do people keep thinking I can do this?"

Whatever the man's reply was, she couldn't hear it, but Shepard straightened, sighed, and nodded. Then, without even looking in Rahna's direction, she stepped to a footlocker beside a utilitarian bed and stripped. The sergeant immediately averted her eyes, blushing, but her eyes saw scars – damn, so many – and bruises, and the telltale starburst of a biotic hit. She saw silver, saw the blue ring, and knew the woman was an L3.

Huh, that was left out of most of the vids. Bigotry and bias was alive and well, apparently.

By the time Rahna got the courage to glance again, Shepard was dressed, impeccable if practical in her black and white fatigues, but the slump of her shoulders wasn't quite gone. The Spectre abruptly looked up, saw her watching, and gave a faded smile. She moved closer, Rahna inhaled and held her breath, and tried not to look pink in the face as Shepard came closer.

"I'm sorry. I've been with my crew so long, it doesn't seem like there's anyone but them in the universe sometimes. Commander Shepard, of the _SRV Normandy_. I believe I owe you an apology."

Her words were...damnitall, they were _human_ , apologetic and real, and it filtered deep into some place long abused and denied from the world in the company of all Marines. Fuck, she hated this woman.

"No, ma'am. I was out of line and responded incorrectly to the situation. I apologize, ma'am."

There was no salute this time, and Rahna smugly thought that, maybe, it had knocked the other woman down a notch or two. To her surprise, though, Shepard chuckled and shook her head, popping her hands on her hips.

"Facing down a Krogan, a Turian, and an Asarian without knowing what you were getting into? I'm surprised you were so collected under pressure, Marine. What's your name?"

She blinked, stunned, and found herself answering without even thinking about the man in the next room. "Staff Sergeant Sadik Rahna, ma'am, of the _SRV Dover_ out of Arcturus Station." This salute didn't hurt her wrist, but was still proper enough to keep her out of trouble.

But as she lowered her arm, she saw a flash of something on Shepard's face, something that thinned her lips and darkened her eyes for only a moment before it disappeared behind an internal Alcatraz. Whatever it was, she didn't miss a beat, and she nodded breezily.

"Well, I appreciate your quick response and cool thinking. There was a lot of adrenaline, and I spoke out of turn. You had every right to raise your weapon, and I should...I need to learn to control that part of myself. Thank you for the reminder."

Rahna...dammitall, she dithered _again_ , pausing, thinking, hesitating, then she finally answered cautiously, "It's fine, ma'am. I understand you feel very strongly about your...crew. It's only natural."

Shepard gave the epitome of an unladylike snort and leveled the sergeant with a look that felt...it felt like a mechanic, oiled up to the elbows, leaning over a dead engine and leveling a wrench in her face. It was learned and true and real and so damn...so damn _honest_ it made her sick.

"Crew, hell. What I've been through with them, what they've gone through with me, I'm surprised it hasn't sent any of them running. Especially after Ash..."

This time, the walls of the prison didn't slam up fast enough, and Rahna saw something dark, something so much darker and more dangerous than what she'd seen before in the mountains. Then, it was fast, hot, and raw. This...this was scarred, faded, but still looked like it bled everyday.

"Um...I'm sorry, ma'am."

If Shepard heard her awkward apology, she didn't mention it. Instead, she gave a little half nod and wandered back to the holographic. Rahna spent the next two hours learning that Spectres had far too much paperwork and far too little downtime. Then she remember that she was an L2, and she wouldn't make it that far up the ranks anyway. So really, she didn't need to worry.

* * *

It was close to what the building's VI called midnight – the days on Intai'sei were three hours longer than those of Earth, a year equivalent to nearly five decades – but the glass dimmed slowly, a sort of artificial twilight covering everything. Dinner was a jagged affair, the medics from the _Dover_ shoveling in pasty nutrients before succumbing to a sleep long earned and well deserved. Then the rest of them, the crew from the _Normandy_ filtered in, and Shepard led the way.

She was a natural leader, obviously, and Rahna watched from her post at the door. There was no hesitation in the woman's movements as she pulled product from a fridge, doing some mental math when no one was looking. She cooked something that smelled good enough to dream about, chunks of meat and the splash of beer sizzling in a shallow pan. At a far observation area, the rest of her crew rested, all in casual clothing, and from her position, Rahna could hear them.

"He's going to be fine. They deactivated his implant for a bit to keep his metabolism from burning through the antibiotics so fast. His temperature is down and his EEG is close to normal. I believe the worst is over."

The Asarian's words were quiet but confident, and the Turian chuffed a moment before taking a swig of something that was _definitely_ contraband. "Of course he's going to be fine. Didn't die on Eden Prime or Feros or...or even Virmire."

There was a heavy silence that lasted for only a second before the Krogan spoke up with a growl, "Shepard won't let any of us go to something as stupid as a damn infection."

At this, there was a responding chuckle as the Turian lifted his bottle in a tired toast. "To the Commander. Neither death nor sickness nor the march of the Geth shall she allow to take us."

She was quiet, the blue alien, but she finally smiled a little and raised her own glass a few inches. "Twenty kiloton nuclear bombs...the only thing stronger than Commander Shepard."

The laughter was louder this time, and the uplifted toad guffawed, "Stronger? Hell, faster, maybe. Nothing's stronger than our Commander."

Then the spoken woman was there, a soft smile on her face as she dished up mounds of food that was scintillating and titillating and every dirty word that wasn't dirty. She took none for herself, simply gave it all away, though Rahna saw the way her cheeks sunk a bit and her eyes shadowed.

The Turian saw it too, hesitating before he took his food, but Shepard shook his head as they had a silent argument they must've run through a thousand times. And the Turian lost, obviously; hell, what could beat Shepard? Other than a nuclear bomb, apparently. Then the Spectre grabbed another beer from a cooler that Rahna would've thought would be empty by now, and she left the room silently.

It took only a few seconds for the sergeant to determine that the infirmary desperately needed protecting, and she followed. She wasn't quiet about it, and when Shepard left the hall light on when she passed through, she took it for approval. Then they were there, in that room that smelled of disinfectant and clumsy death, and Rahna abruptly wondered why this was such a good idea.

But she watched from the shadows as Shepard walked, unafraid, to the side of the occupied hospital bed. There was a chair there, one that seemed to fit her body perfectly, and she sunk into it with a bone weary sigh. One hand immediately grabbed his, no hesitation – _no shame!_ – in her movements, and she kicked her feet up on the end of the bed next to his. The way she slipped down the chair and just sort of seemed to collapse into its cushions reminded Rahna of a nurse she'd seen sit at one too many bedsides.

Is this what a Spectre was? A Commander? Is this what they did: sit around hospital beds and wait for people to wake or die? Or was it just Shepard?

Shaking her head, Rahna dared her fear, braved the unknown, and looked up at the man – thirty two, no longer the seventeen year old farmboy – who occupied the bed. He was on his side, a metal drip tapped into his port, and he was facing Shepard like he'd been waiting for her. His eyes were closed, but there was a faint twitch at his lips that proved his awareness. He was pale, there were bruises that matched hers, and he hummed under his breath.

It reminded her so much of that day, the sound he made when he realized that she couldn't look him in the eye anymore…

But this was happier, freer, despite everything, and she suddenly despised everything about _Commander Fucking Shepard._

Then he opened his eyes, gave a strange grin to the Spectre, and he pulled her hand to his face and passed his lips over her knuckles.

"Suppose I owe you an apology?"

His voice was deeper than she remembered, and she shivered. She wanted to leave, but for all they knew, she wasn't even there.

"Damn right you do, lieutenant." She heard his rank, and hated herself. He was an L2 and got so much further than her. Then she hated him, and ground her teeth.

"You lied to me. I asked you again and again if I was pushing you too hard. You had a fever of a hundred and five when they got you back here. You were hypoxic and half a heartbeat away from seizures when the medics got to you. If I hadn't had that sedative with us, I...dammit, Kaidan!"

Her voice was abruptly harsh, biting, every bit of the command she'd earned dancing in her tones, and Rahna could see him flinch. Then, like the sun burning away the fog, it disappeared, and she just seemed even more tired.

"We'll get Saren. We'll make him pay for Ashley, for Benezia, for everything he's done. But I'm not doing it without you. I can't, and I won't."

Shepard had a simple declaration in her words, a simple statement of fact, and the sergeant wanted to cuss out loud. Instead, she did it silently, and started tallying the people she needed to send a message to. Hackett, of course. Udina, possibly. The human ambassador was well known to be anything but Shepard's biggest fan, but he'd been instrumental in getting her into the elite. Out of everyone, he deserved it.

"What about Rahna? I...I scared her. God, I didn't...I can never fix what I did."

Thoughts of fraternization regulations flew from her mind at his words, and she jerked in place before freezing, even holding her breath. This was...everything she wasn't expecting.

"Relax, Kaidan. She's fine. You didn't hurt her. You've never hurt her. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you can both move on."

The lieutenant's eyes were closed with a combination of drugs and exhaustion, so Shepard didn't mind pinning the other woman with a look.

"It's not that easy, Shepard. I killed for her."

Shaking her head, the Spectre kept her gaze locked on Rahna's as she said quietly, "No, you didn't. You tried to protect her, like you try to protect everyone."

And that was it. There was nothing more, no great, incredible revelation that made everything okay in two shakes of a lamb's tail. Instead, Kaidan fell asleep, his breathing evening off slowly, his hand never losing hers. When he was deep under, Shepard turned away from Rahna and tipped back her lukewarm beer, downing it in three swallows. Then she leaned back, hunkered deeper into the chair, and closed her eyes and slept.

It was less than a half hour before the rest of the crew came in. They were quiet, even the Krogan, surprisingly, and moved with that same practiced movement as before. The Asarian pulled a blanket from nowhere and draped it carefully over Shepard's limp form, taking care not to disturb her hand from Kaidan's. The Turian and the Krogan operated some lever on the bed and made it move, gliding it closer to the Commander's chair.

"Tali?"

It was Shepard, a sleepy mumble coming from her chapped lips, and the Turian gave a strange, alien grin.

"Rest easy, Shepard. She'll be here in the morning. Get some sleep."

Then they left, without another look back, though the Asarian gave Rahna a strange look that made her wonder if the blue thing knew everything in her mind. Instead, she offered her a chair. It was stiff, metal to metal, but Rahna declined with a simple shake of her head. There was nothing further between them all, and the sergeant was alone in a quiet room. It smelled of alcohol, both medicinal and otherwise, and had the strange taste of heat that always seemed to follow fevers.

It took her hours, maybe until Earth's zero two hundred, before she risked it. She reached inside, reached for that dark, dim pulse in her head that was as fragile as the bones in her arm. It spun up uneasily at her touch, and she let it, and she pushed out. Eezo clouded her eyes, made her see mass fields, and before her energy could move beyond her, she held it back.

Because she could see them, _see them_ , see their biotics twirl lazily around each other even in the depths of sleep. Shepard's were darker, his were brighter, and they made a cerulean mixture that reminded her of a cloudless sky. She caught the hint of their tastes, the sensation of them, and realized that Kaidan's weren't what she remembered. Before, she knew burnt espresso and nothing else from him. But now...there was smooth coffee, gun oil, aftershave, the warmth of a blanket while rain poured down. There was so much more – he was so much more – and she felt a deep, utter shame in herself.

There was a shadow of Shepard's biotics, the feel of sunlight and the smell of cherry blossoms and pepper and the touch of Kaidan's palm against hers.

Rahna felt sick, and she stood from where she'd knelt, and fled. She didn't stop until she got to the shuttle, empty and dark in the strange twilight. She felt to her knees, then further, deep sobs of loss, of anger, of hatred and self-loathing and disappointment shaking her to the core.

Everything...everything washed away with those tears.

* * *

Breakfast was late, but Shepard demanded they wait for the last of their crew. Rahna had their names by then – Garrus, Wrex, Liara, and Tali – though she didn't use them. She didn't speak unless spoken to, and kept to her duty well enough. The medics pronounced Kaidan well on the way to mending, the amazement of space-age medicine lost on those who had grown up with it. So the _Dover_ stood ready to recall them, assistance rendered, but then Shepard had looked at her, there was a background flare of biotics, and she'd made a call.

The _Dover_ stayed in orbit another week.

It was...unusual. Strange. Something other than every other day of her life. The team moved around them, Kaidan and Shepard, evenly, and she realized that the two of them were, somehow, equals. Binary suns, maybe. And the crew – the team; _family_ – obeyed and loved like families do. There was a fistfight between Wrex and Garrus that ended with Tali shoving her mask up against the Turian's jaw and saying something that made him go cherry red. Tali and Liara got into a loud debate about some legalization of something beyond Rahna's interest, but she watched them, watched all of them from her post, and noticed their eyes…

They danced. Without moving, _they danced_.

And they folded her and the rest of the medics into their little group a bit at a time, showing pieces of themselves to cross bridges. It worked, she noted distantly, unsure how she should be feeling. Bigotry that was always there if ever unspoken began to fade away with every laugh, every joke, every easy ribbing and gentle smile.

There was darkness, of course. She learned about Ashley on Virmire, and Benezia on Noveria, and decided she hated Saren with a special sort of passion. Rahna learned it wasn't just Geth, that it was so much more, but that they would take the risk and ridicule if it meant safety for the whole of the galaxy. She learned that Shepard had won the homestead – hell, half the planet – from an admiral on Pinnacle Station after she'd beaten something that shouldn't have been survived once, let alone twice.

The seventh night, they were preparing to leave, more reticence in their movements than expected, and she had just finished packing her things when she felt a touch at her elbow. Rahna turned, not surprised to see Shepard, and she didn't say a word when the other woman silently gestured for her to follow. It was dark on the roof of the building though she could still see well enough. There was a telescope, a few chairs, and an old-fashioned firepit on top of a platform, and she sat down, following the Spectre's lead.

They were quiet for several minutes, enjoying the stars, the warm front that had rolled in, and the laughter and light echoing from the open windows below. Then Shepard spoke, and her words stung.

"You broke his heart, and he somehow put it together before I met him. And you broke something deeper, and that...that I had to fix. And I don't blame you, and I don't...I don't hate you. But I wish you could see what he's up against, what we're all up against, and I wish you could forgive him. There's...a strong possibility we won't all come back from this. We're a few jumps away from our final destination as it is. And he's helped me with so many of my demons. I'd just like to help him with one of his."

Shepard's words were quiet, but bit deep enough that they seemed blared over a dozen comms. Rahna didn't react, not immediately, and swallowed down her first words. So much she'd seen, so much she'd learned, and she knew it had changed her. Bottle shooting with a Turian? Gunsmithing from a Krogan? Biotic defense with an Asarian and tech skills from a Quarian? Since she'd landed on the planet, everything about Shepard's command crew made sense.

Her family...it made sense.

"Commander...I don't know how to even talk with him about this. I was...well, young and stupid. That explains a lot, doesn't it?" she asked just as softly, and didn't miss the approving hum from the woman. Confidence bolstered, she continued, "And not even Vyrnnus...God, Shepard. He beat Kaidan so badly, I thought he was going to die. And then he was up, glowing like solar fire, and it _hurt._ " She exhaled shakily, and Shepard leaned forward, placing a light hand on her shoulder as she explained, "His biotics are powerful. It's taken me more than a few months of nightmares to figure out exactly how much control he uses to keep them in check. And he unleashed them to protect you. He gave up that part of himself to _save you_."

Rahna looked up at the woman, caught up in green eyes, and she breathed out, "I forgave him a long time ago. But I never stopped hating him. I hated him for killing Vyrnnus, for making me feel like he broke himself for me. I never wanted him to do it! I begged him to stand down! But his eyes were blue, Shepard, just sparking with eezo, and I don't think he heard me. So I was afraid of him, afraid of how much I wanted him to make Vyrnnus pay, and I hated myself so much for all of it."

Smiling softly, Shepard commented, "And you know what? That makes you human. Just as human as Garrus, and Tali, and Wrex, and Liara. Some things transcend species." There was a distance in her eyes that told Rahna she was reliving a memory, and she asked carefully, "Do you...do you love him?"

There was no shock or anger in her eyes, but there was a sort of tired resignation tempered by a humor that blood hadn't yet shed. She looked back at the stars, her hand falling from Rahna's shoulder, and there seemed to be a lifetime in the breath she took.

"I'm not in a position to love, not yet. But if I could...if I could give anything to someone, I think...I think I'd give him the universe. I think I'd give him every planet, every star, and asteroid and moon. I think I'd give him everything."

This smile was a little more sad, a little more introspective, and she added lightly, "And then I think I'd beg his forgiveness because it doesn't seem like it's enough."

* * *

The _Dover_ left from orbit around Intai'Sei a few hours later, and Rahna hadn't been with Kaidan alone the whole time she'd been there. But, somehow, that was okay. She wasn't okay but this...this was good. This was better. And she was better. She was fairly certain of that. And he knew, _he knew_ that she forgave him. She knew he knew. It was something bone deep, and she could smile because of it.

She showered, shorter this time, and the water was colder, but only because she was used to the thermal-warmed waters of the homestead. Her uniform was a little tight around her thighs, but Shepard's steaks were worth it. Her hair was long and flowing, and she ran her fingers through it before tugging it into a tight bun, if for only practicality. In the mess, she didn't think, didn't hesitate, and sat next to the Volus merchant they were ferrying and the Salarian scientist who'd recently come aboard. They showed surprised, but engaged her readily in conversation. By the end of the meal, they were something closer to friends.

Rahna's day wasn't perfect, but still, she felt all the lighter for it.

* * *

 _~ Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain. ~_


End file.
